Two days later my throat was swollen shut, my eyes were swollen shut, I couldn’t drive because my fingers were several times their normal size. I was rushed to emergency. It was Poison Oak. That was the brush burning that filled the air. They had to give me medications that could also cause me to miscarry, it was that life threatening. It took six weeks for my lungs and breathing passages to clear up. I was worried throughout the rest of my pregnancy. Fortunately, my daughter was born healthy and beautiful (still is). However, she has extreme allergies. I just wonder.

I am sorry for your Mom’s friend. The most vulnerable are children and the elderly. All of you were subjected to serious danger.

It seems to me that the Democrats are, for the most part, a group of people that adopt a generally overlapping ideology of liberty and freedom.

Republicans, however, seem to adopt a principal that is more ancient than one of present civil moralities. A more… monarchical perspective, almost feudal even.

In any civilization steps need to be taken to ensure that there is order, and because of this we have laws. It’s at times when there is a lack of order or a spreading of chaos that laws are made. But, with the more aged civil services, like Monarchy and Feudalism, there doesn’t have to be disorder or chaos to enact laws. There only needs to be dissent from a top class of people or those directly in power, be it in the church or the government.

There are hundreds and probably thousands of laws in this country that aren’t necessary, that hurt more people than they help, but they are still persistent since the common perception among the people is that “no man is above the law”. However, it was man who wrote the law. It is man that enforces the law, and it is man who dissolves the law.

This is where some of the more subtle differences in Democrats and Republicans start to be more transparent. Aside from the normal split of civil liberties and freedoms, the Republicans are the ones who rewrite the law when it suits them (i.e. anti-gay marriage amendments, Patriot Act), upholds the law blindly and wrongfully when it suits them (i.e. the GOP Prez trumps the Dem congress) and dissolves the law when it suits them (Habeas Corpus). There are oh so many more examples to be had and I’m hoping some of you can list them to widen the viewing glass.

Now on to Dems, oh the Democrats. It seems to me that Democrats like to follow the rulebook a little bit more. It’s true that a good amount of freedom/liberty-stripping laws that are still enforced today were backed or even initiated by Democrats… but here’s where we hit another split.

When the Dems do something that ends up being a mistake, they tend to retract it and the reason it was initiated in the first place was based within the bounds of logic and reason: usually safety, curving taxes or what have you. When the Republicans to something that ends up being a mistake, they push it further with the same ideology that initiated it, non-sensible religious ties or skewed views stemmed from money or corruption.

We all know how the GOP gets what they want. We know how they campaign, we know how they use fear to command respect and obedience. And through all of this they breed armies of people that are hardly different from the armies of misled terrorists bred in Afghan etc. An example of this is the Jesus Camp that I’m sure many of you have heard about, if you haven’t just YouTube it. Another example is this obscure Christian College Grad’s essay above, where he excuses his bigotry, hate and intolerance by citing the bible.

The illegitimate Christian-based GOP and their obscure fixation on non-secular government is not going to stop until this country is exactly what it’s trying to fight. The Democrats vitally need to take back this Government, oust the current GOP with disdain so that the party, which normally should serve as an excellent counter-weight much in the same way the Democrats have been doing, can shake off the decades of corruption and non-secular blending of principles and government civics before all of this gets out of control.

I have lived through two bushfires in aus .

The first one was when I was home with a three week old baby and it destroyed the entire suburb next to the one we were in but the house about 50m away in the next suburb went up in blazes and the heat was unbearable. The emergency sevices in NSW, Aus, evacuated us nonetheless because of my baby – the father could not get anywhere near because the fire was leaping across roads, including a 6 lane highway.

The second was far too close to call. Two houses down my street went up in flames but there were no emergency services – only us. The suburb was closed off as the fires were leaping across all approach roads and my ex partner could not get in to to get my daughters out.

My house was at the top of a hill where everybody in the street gathered because there was no water pressure to do anything about the rain of blazing eucalyptus leaves but we had dripping taps in the bath to soak blankets (you needed them against burning eucalyptus leaves) for people to rescue those stranded. The last included a six month old baby and a 3 year old who was devastated by the loss of her teddy bear who was left in the blazing house.

That second bushfire burnt a third of the houses in my then city, Canberra, and there was not a family in the place who was not touched by it. I happened on a Saturday, 3 January 2003. I had the two further weeks of leave to go. Monday, 8:30am, I was impressively taken aback by a call from my Department ((I was with the Australian Federal Public Service, APS) if I/we were ok or needed help. My Head of Department (a Ministerial appointee) was left in his shorts and tank top) and nothing else.

There was a third bushfire 2006-07 as I returned to Australia and yes the haze hung around for weeks though I was miles away from it. There has been some rain but really a sprinkling and the drought that has lasted 11 years to date still has not eased and nor has the pressure on water usage/availability.

I am an immigrant to Australia (most of us are or descendants of unless we can claim to be the original peoples – aborigines) but I fell in love with this parched brown land and returned after years away, sporadically, working at the OECD in Geneva or the the UN as an APS employee..

mumble mumble mumble mumble mumble mumble mumble mumble mumble mumble mumble mumble mumble mumble mumble

translation: Get back over here and untie & ungag me now young lady!

TexBetsy! I was wondering what happened to you!
Cassie! What did you do to the dear lady?

Bob

Sandia Blanca @ 161

TRex, I’m sending you a couple of gift items for your birthday. With love from a fellow Gemini.

OOoooooh!! Thank you, Gemini girl! What day in the Best Astrological Sign EVAAAHH!!!11!! are you?

The seventh of June, thank you for asking. Love those Gemini mood swings!

Petrocelli @ 300

I was always very close to my nieces, nephews and friends’ kids so I know what to expect. “Be Prepared” is the best saying I know.
They are already my best friends and I let them choose my clothes sometimes. I also taught them meditation and have had many enlightening (for all of us) conversations about self realization, attaining goals, etc. for the last 3 years, so we are in sync with one another.
And their friends think that I’m “cool” … for now … *g*

Buy a 2nd fridge and build/acquire more pantry space. Also, save money now for your grocery bills.

LOL … all great advice … we usually have so many of their friends over that my neighbors initially thought we had a dozen kids. *g*

They just did not want to stand out or draw attention to themselves. It is why they never established a distinct Japanese neighborhood in Chicago, but deliberately disbursed around the city.

The cultural loss is sad.

Loo Hoo. @ 284

Oh boy, Petrocelli. Enjoy these next few years with the girls. Thirteen to seventeen is a real work out. There will be times that noting you can do, say or wear is not a total embarrassment to them. Good news, at about seventeen, you’ve got a daughter and friend. Double bonus!

I was always very close to my nieces, nephews and friends’ kids so I know what to expect. “Be Prepared” is the best saying I know.
They are already my best friends and I let them choose my clothes sometimes. I also taught them meditation and have had many enlightening (for all of us) conversations about self realization, attaining goals, etc. for the last 3 years, so we are in sync with one another.
And their friends think that I’m “cool” … for now … *g*

Buy a 2nd fridge and build/acquire more pantry space. Also, save money now for your grocery bills.

DrDick @ 271

I had a lot of Japanese-American friends when I lived in Chicago. All of their families had been in the camps. It really marked them in profound ways. I also knew Tokyo Rose’s nephews and met her a couple of times. They aggressively tried to “fit in” after the war.

yeah, i don’t doubt the fitting in part.

When this whole islamo-muslim thing started, one of my first thoughts, was, eventually, that it would produce a wider acceptance muslim culture.

They just did not want to stand out or draw attention to themselves. It is why they never established a distinct Japanese neighborhood in Chicago, but deliberately disbursed around the city.